Once again, Congress is involved in a Rube Goldberg process of devising a filibuster-proof budget. A convoluted process is necessary since getting 60 senators to agree on something as simple as the time of day seems impossible.

The process begins with the House and Senate each enacting the same budget resolution. This resolution requires only a majority vote in each chamber. The resolution provides a framework for spending and revenue. It can include instructions directing specific committees to make changes to spending, taxes or the debt ceiling.

The committee decisions are then incorporated into a reconciliation bill. Unlike other legislation, reconciliation bills are not subject to filibuster in the Senate and can be passed by majority vote.

To qualify for this singular treatment, reconciliation bills must conform to the so-called Byrd Rule. They can only deal with budgetary issues — primarily taxes, spending and the debt limit. This prevents the “Christmas tree” effect of loading the bill with extraneous special interest goodies designed to gain votes.

More significantly, reconciliation bills cannot increase the federal budget deficit outside the 10-year budgetary window. In making this calculation, all temporary provisions are assumed to expire without renewal.

This assumption is completely unrealistic. The Tax Cut and Jobs Act of 2017 contained tax rate reductions that expire in 2026. If these reductions are not extended, taxes will rise $4.5 trillion over the next 10 years.

If the reductions are extended, deficits will increase $4.5 trillion over the next 10 years. By rule, the Republican Congress of 2017 could not have passed the Tax Cut and Jobs Act without the pretense of expiration even though it had zero expectation that the provisions would be temporary.

Just as a Democratic Congress extended most of expiring Bush tax cuts in 2011, today’s Republican Congress is poised to extend the Trump tax cuts.

But Republicans are going further by adding new time-limited provisions that expire immediately after the 2028 elections. These include an increase in the child tax credit, tax-free treatment of certain tip and overtime income and tax-deductibility of interest on car loans.

Why a 2029 expiration? For one thing, the provisions would run afoul of the Byrd Rule by increasing the deficit if left in place for 10 years rather than four.

But 2029 was chosen mostly because Republicans expect that promising to extend these provisions will be popular in the 2028 election.

Tax policy doesn’t get more cynical than this.

The sad fact is that the Byrd Rule has proven just as ineffective as other congressional attempts at budgetary self-control. These previous attempts include the Gramm-Rudman-Hollings Act of 1985, the Budget Enforcement Act of 1990 and the Budget Control Act of 2011.

The U.S. government is now $36 trillion in debt. The annual deficit has only been this big as a percentage of GDP during World War II.

This is crazy and there is only one thing that can stop the madness: a budgetary straitjacket in the form of a Balanced Budget Constitutional Amendment.

Jeffrey Scharf welcomes your comments. Contact him at jeffreyrscharf@gmail.com.